A new paper on the impact of home gardens in Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya shows the importance of carefully identifying local barriers to growing and eating vegetables at home.

With the lowest per capita consumption of vegetables in the world, the people of sub-Saharan Africa need practical solutions backed by local and national policies to get more and safer healthy, nutritious vegetables into their diets.

Home gardens are one option to increase vegetable consumption, yet a recent analysis by the World Vegetable Center of home garden projects in East Africa indicates the practice must be applied with particular care to stimulate people to consume more home-produced nutritious food.

“Impact of home garden interventions in East Africa: Results of three randomized control trials” by WorldVeg researchers Lutz Depenbusch, Pepijn Schreinemachers, Ralph Roothaert, Sylvia Namazzi, Charles Onyango, Sophia Bongole, and James Mutebi, published in Food Policy 104 (2021), is based on the USAID-funded project Deploying Vegetable Seed Kits to Tackle Malnutrition in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Liberia (2015-2018). Data were collected at a scaling stage from 25 control and 25 treatment villages to examine the entire impact pathway, from participation in training to the type of vegetables grown and consumed by each household.

While the project in Tanzania helped more households to produce vegetables and for a longer period of time in the year, no such effects were found in Kenya and Uganda. The researchers also did not find that the project increased mean household vegetable production or improved the quality of diets.

Although most respondents indicated they were satisfied with the project, a large proportion did not actually participate in many of the nutrition and gardening training events, particularly in Uganda.

However, households that did not grow vegetables before the project were able to benefit more, which is important for future targeting of home garden interventions: the scope for impact is greatest in locations where there is little vegetable production.

Home garden interventions have been successful in delivering positive nutritional outcomes in Asia. The results of the Africa study stand in contrast to the researchers’ findings for Bangladesh, where participation rates in home garden projects were very high; vegetable production and consumption increased and was sustained several years after project support ended.

“There is a need to better understand the incentives of households, particularly rural women, to engage in home gardens,” said Schreinemachers. “For instance, participants in Kenya and Uganda seemed more interested in selling vegetables for income than in consuming their own vegetables.”

Further research on gender roles and people’s food attitudes and practices in the three East African countries will help development practitioners devise more suitable home garden interventions adapted to local needs and conditions.

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Lutz Depenbusch, Pepijn Schreinemachers, Ralph Roothaert, Sylvia Namazzi, Charles Onyango, Sophia Bongole and James Mutebi. 2021. Impact of home garden interventions in East Africa: Results of three randomized control trials. Food Policy 104 (2021) 102140.

Also visit the Home Garden Toolbox, built with the knowledge and experience generated by this and other WorldVeg home garden projects.